


Once more into eternity (with you)

by RyuuSiren7



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Marriage (Good Omens), 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), Alternate Universe - Time Travel, GOC 2020: Day 12, Good Omens Celebration 2020, Heaven & Hell, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, Multi, Other, The Ineffable Plan (Good Omens), Time Travel, a lot changes in 6000 years but our main two idiots are slow on the uptake, plus - Freeform, prompt: memory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24124798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RyuuSiren7/pseuds/RyuuSiren7
Summary: Adam hits the post-Armageddidn’t recovery button a little too hard. Roughly 6,000 years too hard.Crowley and Aziraphale really didn’t need to relive an entire 6 millennia (ugh, the 14th century again?!) but at least they have each other in a world that’s at once familiar and all too strange.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Comments: 16
Kudos: 124





	Once more into eternity (with you)

**Author's Note:**

> Does this fandom really need a time travel fic? Is there really anything to be gained from it, especially one that spans the entire 6,000 years of Earth? Nope. Am I writing one anyway? Yep.
> 
> I must write a time travel fic for every fandom I’m in. Good Omens does not escape this fate. 
> 
> Anyway, this is posted in honor of the GOC2020 prompt, Theme 12: Memory

_ “Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.” –  _ Henry Van Dyke.

* * *

He’s felt it building, they both have. The swell of the antichrist’s remaining power, the ripples in reality as bookshops and Bentleys find themselves unburned and the dead return to life. It’s been growing, too much and too fast as it stumbles on the cracks and folds from when Crowley had reached his hands towards the skies and held Time in his grasp.

Something is wrong.

The change happens before he can even finish opening his mouth to warn the angel sitting on his apartment’s sofa.

* * *

_‘Well, that went down like a lead balloon.’_

The words are heavy on his tongue, already halfway formed when they twist and falter. Sand stretches into an endless sea before him as wind ruffles through long (why is it long? It shouldn’t be -) hair, the only protection from the sun and dirt provided by scaled sandals and black cloth.

And in front of him a familiar silhouette, curly white and wind-tousled hair shining in the light, round and perfect body draped in robes that seem dull in comparison.

“Angel…?” It comes out broken, cracked in the middle, full of things unsaid. 

Crowley regrets it immediately. There’s no saying what’s happening, if Heaven and Hell are watching, or if - or if Aziraphale even remembers 6,000 years that have apparently been undone. If maybe it was a special and particular torment created by the Almighty just for him, to taunt him with what he could never quite reach and then rip it even further away.

But before his heart can finish shattering, Aziraphale is turning, eyes wide and glistening with what could be joy or tears or both as he raises a shaking outstretched hand, his own voice just as full of confusion and fear and the kind of loss better suited for funerals and fires in bookshops.

“My dear…? Crowley, are you -?”

Instinct has him reaching back before what’s happening can even be fully processed inside the demon’s head. It’s an old game, one of them reaching out to each other, a familiar dance that his body has long since memorized. Even when the only thing his lips can form is a strangled “ _Nngk_ ”, he stumbles into his angel’s arms, following through the motions.

Aziraphale’s laughter is breathless and wet in return as he clutches back just as fiercely, white wings lifting to cover them as the first drops of rain begin to fall. Crowley mimics the motion this time around, the different positioning letting him return the favor as black wings curve around white to shelter the angel beneath.

“Thank G@d..… I was… Oh, my dear, I was so afraid I’d lost you, that I’d be alone… you’d still be here, of course, I would still have befriended you all over again… but it wouldn’t be _you_ … it wouldn’t…”

A sob of his own escapes Crowley’s throat, even as he wrangles down the emotions overwhelming him and reaches up with trembling fingers, tangling them into the Principality’s already messy hair. “I know, I was… I thought… me too. I thought so too. But it’s me, angel. It’s _me._ ”

He leans back slightly, serpent eyes blown wide as he smiled down at the other with a shaky grin. “Anthony J. Crowley, at your service.” He’d do a little bow if he could, something dramatic and over the top that would make the angel roll his eyes and chuckle, but Aziraphale is warm and here and _alive_ in his arms, and it’s been a very long day.[i]

The angel laughs anyway, sliding one arm free of its grip against Crowley’s back and mimicking the tipping an imaginary hat. “Aziraphale Zachariah Fell, my dear. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

And then they’re laughing even as they hold each other in the storm, contributing the wet marks on their cheeks to the rain even though it can’t reach them beneath each other’s wings. 

It’s a comfort, to hear each other’s chosen names, their now-future names that no one else in Heaven nor Hell had ever bothered to know. It’s proof that they’re them, to each other and to themselves, and that even this distortion of time wouldn’t tear them apart.[ii][iii]

* * *

Eventually, the skies clear and they step away, fingers trailing against each other’s skin in reluctant parting. It’s already more than they have allowed themselves in years - in decades if not centuries - and possibly more than they can afford.

“Wot do you suppose this is all about, then?” Crowley is, of course, the one who questions, who makes the first move now that he can speak with more than stuttered sentences and unintelligible sounds.[iv]

The Principality hums, looking out over the horizon and the increasingly distant figures of Adam and Eve. Crowley knows what he’s going to say before the angel is finished opening his mouth, but it’s already too late to stop it. “...It’s ineffable?”

Crowley groans, and Aziraphale smirks and wriggles just slightly in that bastard way of his.

Lord, but Crowley loves him. 

The demon glances away, shifting with the need for his currently nonexistent sunglasses. When he turns back, there is a pair in Aziraphale’s hands and a soft smile on the other’s face.

“Angel…? But what about…?” he motions towards the sky and then points down with a shrug. Sunglasses certainly don’t exist yet as far as Heaven and Hell are concerned.

Aziraphale just grinned, tipping his head in consideration. “I doubt they’ll care, my dear. Besides, you were always the most clever of them. I’m sure they’ll believe it if you claimed to have come up with them yourself.”

Fair point. 

They fit perfectly, just as Crowley and Aziraphale expect them too. Already Crowley feels more settled, now that the brightness of the light above isn’t burning and his all too emotional eyes hidden. 

“You don’t think they remember too, then? If they do, that’d be a clear sign that we also know.”

“I expect that if they indeed remember, nothing we do or don’t do will matter.”

Clawed hands twitch at the reminder, and the demon smells smoke on the breeze even though the only possible source here is a much too distant flaming sword. “We could - We could switch. Just in case, for a while.”

The angel shakes his head, glancing up towards the sky. “If events follow the same pattern as last time, then it would be too dangerous. You need to leave, my dear.”

Aziraphale continues before Crowley can protest, looking sternly at the demon even while clearly afraid. “The Lord spoke to me after I had finished repairing the wall. You must not be here when She turns her gaze this way.”

Crowley gulps. Pulling one over on a bunch of daft-witted archangels is one thing, but fooling G@d Herself?

Both impossible and not recommended. Crowley’s only been paying for it for 6,000 (not) years, after all. 

“So what, then? We just… report back, hope for the best, and meet up again in a century?” The words burn as soon as they reach his tongue. To go an entire century without seeing Aziraphale, after centuries of having him just within reach… it’s far too cruel a concept.

Judging by his expression, the angel agrees.

“Perhaps not quite a century, my dear. Just… as long as it takes. As soon as we return to Earth and it’s safe to do so, we contact the other.”

“I’ll wait for you.” Crowley carefully doesn’t finish, leaving his unspoken words to trail off between them. He doesn’t want to go too fast. Doesn’t know if he can afford to, now that Time seems to have lost track of itself.

Aziraphale hears them regardless, clearing his throat and gracing the demon with a smile that speaks for him. “As will I, my dear.”

And with that, the demon is on his way to Hell while the angel is getting to work on repairing a rather large hole in the wall of the Eastern Gate, and will soon be returning to Heaven if all goes well. Their promise remains between them, hanging in the threads of reality and beyond the reach of Time itself.

_I’ll wait for you, for as long as it takes. Always._

* * *

[i] Day, week, 11 years, century, 6 millennia - all the same, really

[ii] Time, as it happened, would _never_ have allowed such a thing. It was rather fond of the redheaded Starmaker that had helped create it,[iii] and knew how important to each other they were. If only one had traveled backward (or forwards, or sideways, or what-have-you) in time, then it would have made a path for the other to follow.

[iii] Not just anyone could control Time, after all. It had to like you first, and that was a difficult thing to accomplish. 

[iv] Unintelligible unless you are Aziraphale, who could likely write a dictionary on the patterns and inflections of Crowley’s speech (or, in this case, lack thereof).

* * *

Come say hi!  
  
Tumblr - art/writing blog: [@ryuu-scribbles](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ryuu-scribbles), good omens blog: [@ineffably-ryuu](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ineffably-ryuu)  
  
Instagram - [@ryuu_of_rome](https://www.instagram.com/ryuu_of_rome/?hl=en)

Twitter - [@RyuuSiren7](https://twitter.com/RyuuSiren7)

**Author's Note:**

> Grammarly stop telling me where the commas do and do not belong. I know. I am aware. They are added for Spice. And I will not change this. At least my finals are done, wahoo! Time to enjoy my week of summer before Maymester starts.
> 
> ALSO - considering turning this into a multichapter fic. Thoughts?


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